


the couples

by bluebeholder



Series: the accidental epic [27]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Knitting, M/M, Shopping, Stargazing, Suitcase Family, couples, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-29 23:49:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12096105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: The summer of 1929 is an uneventful time for the Suitcase Family. In their odd couples, they're all going their own ways and having their own small adventures. It's a good summer.





	the couples

**Author's Note:**

> These are all snippets originally posted on tumblr which...somehow collapsed together into a coherent mini-narrative? I dunno. Anyway: they're all here in one convenient location for your viewing pleasure!

**1\. the farmer's market**

Queenie is utterly charmed as she watches Jacob wandering through the market. He’s pretty good at hiding his open wonder, these days, but Queenie doesn’t even have to be able to read his thoughts to see that he’s just flummoxed and awestruck by the market around them. 

There’s a vendor of potion ingredients, whose leaping toadstools and shrivelfigs share space with mundane herbs: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. A breeder of Puffskeins has a whole poffle and is going about, hawking the soft creatures from an enormous basket. Even mundane stalls become magic: a hatmaker has a helpful troop of Brownies trimming hats to order, a wizard serves up potions brewed up on the spot, magical candies that explode and sing and change color practically sell themselves. Wizards and witches hawk their goods with conjured spells and banners, showing off everything they have. It’s an absolute riot of color and chaos, and if Queenie is impressed, then Jacob is point-blank amazed. 

“What are we looking for?” Queenie asks, seizing his hand before they can be separated by a little coven of witches hunting for a broomstick-maker. 

“I was just thinking of pie fillings!” Jacob says, turning to her with wide eyes. “I didn’t think of all this!” _Are those beets FLOATING?_

“Come buy, come buy!” a wizard shouts nearby, as if he’d heard Jacob. “Apples! Quinces! Lemons and oranges! Cherries, melons, raspberries! Peaches and mulberries, pineapples, blackberries! Pears and currants, figs and barberries! Come buy! Come buy!”

Jacob shakes his head and laughs, and pulls Queenie across the street. Diagon Alley seems to have gone mad. The summer months before the students go back to Hogwarts were supposed to be quiet, but then this happened. It seems that every wizard worth their Galleons comes here to sell their wares. 

At the fruit-seller’s stand, Jacob haggles cheerfully for enough fruit that he and Queenie are both weighed down on both arms. There’s enough blueberries for a dozen pies and more muffins, more cherries than Queenie cares to count, limes and lemons for custard pies, pears that will make lovely tarts, figs that will make fresh fig rolls…they’re going to be baking for a century at this rate. 

Though there are some narrow shaves, they do get the fruit back to the bakery, where Millie is handling the counter with professional charm and pride. The place is hectic today, what with the market going on outside, but Millie looks totally unfazed as she takes care of things. She waves to Queenie when she and Jacob duck inside, but never stops working. 

Queenie bumps the kitchen door open with her hip and she and Jacob trip over each other getting out of the crush of the crowd. The sudden absence of thoughts leaves Queenie’s head ringing. The second the fruit baskets are on the counter, she collapses onto the floor, lying back lazily on the tile. “Jacob, I ain’t going back out there for love or money.”

He sits down beside her, shaking his head. “I think we’d do better to stay in here and work,” he says. _…still so much to see out there…_

“Maybe,” Queenie says. She reaches up to take his hand. “Or you could go back out there and have a good time. I’m sure that I can handle things here.”

_Serious?_ “You sure about that, kitten?” Jacob asks. 

Queenie smiles up at him. “Of course I am. You need to do things without me, sometimes, you know?”

Jacob leans down and Queenie props herself up on an elbow so he can kiss her on the cheek. “Don’t work too hard. This is supposed to be our day off, remember?” _Best girl ever._

She swats at his arm. “Go on, get out there and have fun!” From the floor, Queenie watches Jacob go, practically bouncing with excitement. She rests her head on the cool floor and relishes the quiet, and imagines the kind of stories Jacob will have tonight. She just can’t wait to hear them.

 

**2\. the sweaters**

“Newt,” Tina asks, looking down at him where he’s perched on a rock, “are you…are you knitting?”

“I am knitting sweaters for the albino penguins we rescued from that shipwreck,” Newt says, not turning away from his work. The sweater is tiny, smaller than would fit a child. “They’ll try to preen if I don’t do something, and that’ll end badly for them. So sweaters it is.”

Tina sinks down to sit next to him. “I can’t even knit,” she says despairingly. “You know how?”

“How do you think I get socks?” Newt asks, shrugging. He holds up the miniature sweater, studying it critically. There’s not a dropped stitch in sight, and its broken rib stitch pattern looks virtually machine-made, it’s so good. 

“…I feel inadequate next to you.”

Newt gives her a look. “Oh, don’t you start.”

Tina pinches the bridge of her nose. “You know, someday, we’re going to have a child, and you’re going to knit all of their clothes and turn out to be good with a sewing machine and I’ll just be…useless!”

Suddenly there are two needles and a ball of yarn in her lap. “Well, be less useless!” Newt says primly. “Get knitting! We haven’t got all day, there are still six penguins who need sweaters. It’s not my fault you didn’t practice in your misspent youth.”

“You…!” Tina squawks.

Newt cuts her off by the expedient of kissing her soundly. She scowls at him when he sits back to continue his work, but casts on anyway, and can’t keep the scowl up when he smiles at her with great cheer. 

“See? This isn’t so hard,” Newt says encouragingly, hours later, when Tina’s finished her first miniature sweater. 

She eyes it with mild disdain. Dropped stitches everywhere, simple knitting stitch because she barely knows how to purl. It’s lopsided, too. “Yes, it is.”

Newt laughs. “Well, you know what they say.”

“What do they say?” Tina asks warily.

He tosses another ball of yarn into her lap, eyes sparkling. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” 

Tina has to resist the urge to scream into the ball of yarn.

 

**3\. the stargazers**

“I though you hated Divination?” Credence asks, following Percival across the field. 

“I do,” Percival says. He holds up the book he’s carrying. “But there’s some useful things to be learned from at least knowing the basics.”

Credence bounds forward a couple of steps to take Percival’s free hand. “Didn’t we do this back in Wyoming?”

Percival pauses and glances at Credence. “There’s always room for more.”

“Oh,” Credence says. He bites his lip, feeling a minor simmer of anticipation. So he was right–this isn’t just an attempt to get Credence to study. 

They get well away from the house, out into the middle of the field. It’s pitch black out here, except for the radiance of the stars overhead, the sweep of the Milky Way filling the sky. Percival pulls Credence down onto the grass and Credence lies back, arms under his head. “There’s so many stars,” he murmurs. 

“You can’t see them all in New York,” Percival says. Credence can just see his profile against the silver backdrop. “Too much light.”

Credence returns his attention to the sky. “So what…why would you look at stars to see the future?”

“They can give an idea of what’s to come,” Percival says. “Muggles have some of the basics, actually; it’s one of the few forms of magic they can perform with any results because you don’t have to be a wizard to observe the planets and stars.”

“Have you ever gotten something right?”

Percival snorts. “I’m absolutely terrible. Though I did hear recently that if I’d been paying attention I might have been able to predict one important thing that happened last year.”

“What was it?”

“Jupiter and Uranus were in conjunction on July the ninth of nineteen twenty-seven,” Percival says. He taps the cover of the book. “A conjunction of those planets foretells a revolutionary change, a fiery move that risks everything regardless of consequences.”

Credence squints at the bright stars overhead. “…July ninth?”

“Yes.”

“…no!”

“Yes.”

“That was the day I kissed you!”

Percival laughs. “And that’s why Divination magic is important. I could have seen it coming a mile away.”

Credence tugs on Percival’s shirt, pulling him down to the grass. “You could have seen it coming a mile away, anyway. You didn’t need the stars.”

“No,” Percival agrees, lacing his fingers with Credence’s. “I didn’t. I had you.”

They watch the skies, the stars in their multitudes looking back with quiet benevolence, all intentions of looking into the future forgotten. Credence thinks distantly that he doesn’t want to look into the future. He doesn’t want to know what’s in store for them, what comes next. He’s perfectly content to be here, with the man he loves, watching the stars. 

Tomorrow will be what it will be, and besides…if the stars foretold something terrible, Credence would defy them anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> The fruit-seller's patter is adapted from Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market". 
> 
> Yes, the albino penguins are a reference to "At The Mountains Of Madness". I thoroughly believe that Newt would pet a Shoggoth, if given the chance. 
> 
> The conjunction that Percival describes was a happy accident! I didn't know that July 9, 1927 was the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus, but there you go. THIS SHIP IS WRITTEN IN THE STARS!
> 
> ...anyway. 
> 
> More Suitcase Family snippets to come soon, they've got a journey round the world to take...but I hope this can tide everyone over in the meanwhile! <3


End file.
